Gates: Ousting Qadhafi not mission

Nearly two weeks after U.S. and coalition forces attacked Libya, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to Capitol Hill on Thursday to publicly answer lawmakers’ questions about the operation.

One question stood out among them: What’s the plan if Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi doesn’t go?

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Their answer: That’s someone else’s problem.

“Deposing the Qadhafi regime, as welcome as that eventuality would be, is not part of the military mission. In my view, the removal of Col. Qadhafi will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people,” Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.

Mirroring what lawmakers had heard in classified briefings Wednesday, Gates and Mullen defended the administration’s decision to launch an air and naval assault against Qadhafi’s forces, saying it had averted a humanitarian disaster. But they made clear that the United States would take a back seat in any future military effort there, even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly said Qadhafi must go.

Under questioning from lawmakers, Gates and Mullen said the international military campaign had created “cracks” in the regime, citing as an encouraging sign the defection Wednesday of Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, a close ally of Qadhafi. Mullen said the bombing had caused a 20 percent to 25 percent reduction in the capability of government forces, but said “Qadhafi still possesses superior military ability to those of the forces arrayed against him.”

Gates said the Libyan resistance still lacked effective command, control and coordination. “It’s very disparate. It’s very scattered, and probably each element has its own agenda,” he said, but he and Mullen made clear the United States would dramatically scale down its involvement now that NATO has taken command.

But their answers didn’t soothe lawmakers concerns that the United States might become mired in an open-ended conflict that might last years. Both Democrats and Republicans questioned whether Washington and its allies could just walk away – or continue to insist on a limited military mission — if the rebels were unable to defeat Qadhafi and form a stable, democratic government.

“History has demonstrated that an entrenched enemy, like the Libyan regime, can be resilient to air power. If Qadhafi does not face an imminent military defeat or refuses to abdicate, it seems that NATO could be expected to support a decade-long no-fly zone enforcement, like the one over Iraq in the ’90s,” said Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), House Armed Services Committee chairman.

“I share the chairman’s concerns, given our commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, how long can we sustain this and where is this going,” the panel’s ranking Democrat, Adam Smith of Washington, said.

Gates said Qadhafi’s forces are beginning to crack under the weight of the sustained bombing campaign and would continue to do so. “But the bottom line is no one can predict for you how long it will take for that to happen,” he added.

He appeared to rule out the United States arming or training the rebels, echoing a statement from NATO saying that it would enforce the U.N. arms embargo. “I think what the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some command and control, and some organization,” he said. “In terms of providing that training, in terms of providing assistance to them, frankly, there are many countries that can do that. That’s not a unique capability for the United States. And, as far as I’m concerned, somebody else should do that.”

Defense analysts say it’s not likely the rebels will be able to defeat Qadhafi without foreign intervention. Even if they do, a post-Qadhafi Libya may pose a new set of problems if rebel forces are unable to unite and form a stable government or turn on each other.

“If you’ve got complete amateurs on the ground – even if you’ve got special forces working with them – they’re completely unable to take ground against a well-armed dug-in enemy,” said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. “There’s a distinct possibility that we can be stuck with a stalemate.”